Book of Mormon Witnesses

[Scott Lloyd]

32 minutes ago, TheSkepticChristian said:

I am no longer doing that, learn to forgive. 

 

Have you ever sought forgiveness? Have you ever expressed remorse for doing that sort of thing? What assurance is there that you wouldn't go back to doing it should you find yourself placed on limited status again?

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How arrogant. Is Historian Dan Vogal also a teen? 

No, he's definitely not a teen.

I found this expression from him in correspondence published on an Internet website:

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My goal in life is to be authentic and true to my feelings and thoughts. I try to be as respectful as I can towards those who may disagree with me.

I see a difference between him and you in that respect.

I should point out that I don't mean to paint teenagers with too broad of a brush. Many of them have achieved a superb level of character and maturity and others are trying hard to do so.

And by the way, historian (spelled with a lower-case h) is not a proper-name title.

Edited March 15, 2016 by Scott Lloyd

[TheSkepticChristian]

20 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

My goal in life is to be authentic and true to my feelings and thoughts. I try to be as respectful as I can towards those who may disagree with me.

I see a difference between him and you in that respect.

What? but I am not disagreeing with anyone here in this thread. I am simply asking for documented evidence. 

Are there first or second hand accounts of at least one witness  describing Moroni?

Just because a lot of people try to paint me as arrogant and disrespectful doesn't mean I am. 

Edited March 15, 2016 by TheSkepticChristian

[Kemara]

3 hours ago, TheSkepticChristian said:

Oh back off! You are a waste of time. 

So you want me to reveal my name, my place of work and my contact details but you are not willing to do the same? What word would you use to describe a person who is not willing to do the same? Please consult the holy book of Oxford.

3 hours ago, TheSkepticChristian said:

At least tell me of a paper published in a respected journal that proves GM food is not safe. You will never answer that question. 

Yet more lies. Go back and read the thread properly. Its obvious you didn't read it because I mentioned several times that I was a scientist and even described some of my current research work, yet right here on this thread that you derailed you learnt about me being a scientist for the first time.  If you pay more attention to the threads you start then you won't end up looking like such a fool all the time.

3 hours ago, TheSkepticChristian said:

Now get out of my thread...

I will if you stop addressing my posts. It is a very simple concept, lets see if you can comprehend it.......

Both of you take the personal beefs to PM. Thread closed.

[Cold Steel]

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CS» I don't believe this means anything, but in the earliest paintings Moroni had a beard. But later, as beards became far less common, Moroni became clean shaven.

TheSkepticChristian» That is an honest answer. What about second-hand? "I don't believe this means anything." 

It does to many here.

Well, I'm game. 

What does it mean, exactly? What is it you hope to prove or disprove by descriptions? Especially since the scriptures fail to describe anyone except for superficial references, say, to Nephi's size, John the Baptist's apparel and diet, the angel who appeared to Sampson's parents and King Saul's manly appearance. Also, in the Book of Mormon, there are descriptions of dress, shaved heads, weapons, armor and so forth. There are never any physical traits mentioned. We don't know whether Lehi was frail or fit, but we can note his increasing inability to control his children (especially on the voyage), the fact that it was Nephi traipsing up the mountain at Bountiful and overseeing the building of the ship. So we can deduce that he was frail, but other than that we don't know. 

If you had the three witnesses differing wildly about the angel's appearance, I could see your point. But none left any description of the angel except Smith, and again it's the clothing, the brightness. We don't know if he was tall, short, had a full beard or partial beard (or no beard). In fact, the best description was of Paul by Joseph:

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He is about 5 foot high; very dark hair; dark complexion, dark skin; large Roman nose; sharp face; small black eyes, penetrating as eternity; round shoulders; a whining voice, except when elevated and then it almost resembles the roaring of a lion. He was a good orator. 

And this is an apocryphal description of Paul from William Hone’s edition of The Apocryphal New Testament (1820).

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At length they saw a man coming, of a low stature, bald (or shaved) on the head, crooked thighs, handsome legs, hollow eyed; had a crooked nose; full of grace; for sometimes he appeared as a man; sometimes he had the countenance of an angel.*

Joseph Smith may have seen this description, so it's moot. But it's still of interest.

Don't know if you've listened to these, but you might want to give them a run: Daniel C. Peterson's lecture on the Evidences of the Book of Mormon (http://youtube.com/?#/watch?v=YL-NXToiksQ) and The Witnesses (http://youtube.com/?#/watch?v=V38jsyMnyIs). 

There are apparently a number of people, even latter-day saints, who discount the promised spiritual witness that comes from the Holy Spirit. And though it's nice to have solid evidence in all things, pursuing it can take a lifetime and can turn people into cynics. The skeptical mind is fine in the beginning, but the many facets of the church are too many to take on. If the Book of Mormon is true, it stands to reason that the rest is also true. Thus, if one can determine that there's enough evidence for the Book of Mormon to drive one to one's knees, the rest follows. There's no need to move on to the Book of Abraham or the Book of Moses, or any other thing unless one wants to consider Smith a fallen prophet, and that I personally reject on the grounds that the Restoration of the Gospel was intended to be one of the greatest events to occur on the earth and one that the prophets pointed to all the way from Adam to Christ. 

I came upon an interesting story by an early convert of the church which, in itself, proves nothing. But it is intriguing:

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The book was hardly in my hand, when, as in a moment, my light and recollection returned as usual. This made me rejoice, and immediately the idea flashed across my mind, "What have you done with the Book of Mormon? Behave as fairly to that." I soon reprocured it. But, even this time, I felt prejudiced against the book. I resolved, however, to read it through, and I persevered in its perusal, till I came to that part where Jesus, on visiting the continent of America, after his resurrection, grants the request of three of the apostles whom he had chosen, to permit them to live until his second coming on the earth (like unto John spoken of in the Bible). 

Here my mind half yielded to the belief which arose within me, that perhaps it might be true, whereupon I took the book and laid it before the Lord, and pleaded with Him in prayer for a testimony whether it was true or false, and, as I found it stated that the three Nephites had power to show themselves to any persons they might wish to, Jews or Gentiles, I asked the Lord to allow me to see them for a witness and testimony of the truth of the Book of Mormon, and I covenanted with Him, if He complied with my request, that I would preach it, even at the expense of my life, should it be necessary. 

The Lord heard my prayer, and, about five days afterwards, two of the three visited me in my bedroom. I did not see them come, but I found them there. One spoke to me for some time, and reproved me sharply on account of my behavior at the time when I first attended the meeting of the Saints.... This personage spoke in the Nephite language, but I understood, by the Spirit which accompanied him, every word as plainly as if he had spoken in English. I recognized the language to be the same as that in which I had heard Father Fisher speak at the meeting. Such a rebuke, with such power, I never had in my life, before nor since, and never wish to have again. I was dumb before my rebuker, for I knew that what he said was right, and I felt deserving of it. 

How these men went, I do not know, but directly they were gone, the Spirit of the Lord said to me, "Now, you know for yourself! You have seen and heard! If you now fall away, there is no forgiveness for you." Did I not know then, that the Book of Mormon was true, and that Joseph Smith was a prophet of the Lord? Surely I did, and I do now, as surely as I know that I live. The world wonders at the zeal and faith of "Mormon" missionaries in diffusing their principles over the world; but the surprise of the world would soon cease did they know by what evidences the truth of the faith of the Latter-day Saints had been made known unto them, for by such proofs as the foregoing, and by the revelations of the Holy Ghost...has the work of the last days been attested unto thousands upon thousands, in ways so peculiar, and attended with such circumstances, that no power of sophistry or reason can possibly show these proofs to be the effects of a fanatical mind or a diseased imagination. 

And even could these proofs be overturned, the Latter-day Saints have still stronger proofs found in the evidences of glorious principles, never before discovered, harmonizing with each other, and every known truth, and clearing up and connecting Scripture statements from beginning to end, unlocking the great science of life, shedding light on our existence, and discovering, in the arrangement and combination of these truths, an infinite intelligence that none but a mind that knew the end from the beginning could display!

Benjamin Brown, GEMS FOR THE YOUNG FOLKS, Fourth Book, "Testimonies of the Truth"

 

Brown remained a faithful latter-day saint until his death in 1878, but after reading numerous early accounts by Parley P. Pratt, Heber C. Kimball and others, there was not then the struggle over verification by facts (probably because there weren't many of them at the time). Instead, it was a battle of faith, where the struggle was spiritual, not intellectual. Paul spoke of our day where people would be ever learning, but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. I don't know if Brown saw two of the Three Nephites or not; only that he was a stubborn man who spent years "bouncing from church to church, seeking what he felt would be the truth." This was primarily due to a vision he received in the early 1820s.

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He saw a vision of his brother, who had died in 1804, praying. He could hear his brother say that a great work was to be done on the earth during the last days, and quoted a few bible passages. The vision of his brother vanished and he felt a rush of wind hit him and a voice say, "This is understanding!" He heard his wife's voice behind him and the vision ended. Benjamin said that the vision left him with a sense of hunger that he would use as a measuring point for any religious experience he later had.

We don't tend to rely on the Spirit anymore. Instead, we have the Internet, libraries, books and videos to guide us, and many have predicted that these will ultimately destroy the church. 

Only time will tell.